What Is Magneto Doing in X-Men: Dark Phoenix?

1 year ago

It was confirmed last month that the highly-anticipated X-Men: Dark Phoenix will bring back the primary X-Men: Apocalypse cast, and today we have even more details about one of these iconic characters, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto. While these details have yet to be confirmed, the latest report teases that Magneto may be leading a cult in this superhero adventure, which will be set in the 1990s. This will also lead to a drastic change in his costume for Dark Phoenix, and while we may have to wait some time for these details to be confirmed, there is a precedent of Magneto leading a cult in the Marvel comics.

Nerdist reports that Michael Fassbender will have a new costume that, “is meant to suggest the imagery commonly associated with cult leaders”. While no specific details were given regarding the new look Michael Fassbender will be sporting in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, the site speculates that this could mean the Acolytes from the Marvel Comics could make their big screen debut in this movie. In the Marvel Comics, the Acolytes were a group of mutants who saw Magneto as the mutant messiah and followed him everywhere. The site also points out that, since the film is set in the 1990s, and the Acolytes were introduced in the Marvel Comics in the same decade, it could bode well for these characters to join this story.

There has also been talk for quite some time that this X-Men movie will be at least partially set in outer space, which could tie in to the Acolytes as well. In the Marvel Comics, Magneto and the Acolytes have a commune in outer space on Asteroid M, which may very well play into this story. The most intriguing tidbit from this report, though is that the land of Genosha will be a part of this story. The fictional country of Genosha was introduced in the late 1980s by writer Chris Claremont, which had enslaved mutants before Magneto overthrew the government and declared it as the new homeland for all mutants. In the comics, the Sentinels eventually wiped out most of the mutant population, but it’s possible there could be some changes to the Genosha story line from the comics, that could tie into Jean Grey (Sophie Turner).

At the end of X-Men: Apocalypse, we got a brief glimpse of Jean Grey’s powers with the Phoenix Force, which she used to kill Apocalypse. In the comics, the Phoenix Force eventually consumes Jean Grey and forces her to turn against the X-Men, and it was the Hellfire Club that convinced Jean Grey to user her Phoenix Force powers, but the Hellfire Club was basically done away with after X-Men: First Class. The site speculates that Magneto’s new life as a cult leader on Genosha may be enough to enrage Jean Grey to the point where her Dark Phoenix powers manifest themselves. Regardless, none of these details have been confirmed yet, but with production starting soon, we may finally get some confirmed plot details soon.

The Dark Phoenix saga previously unfolded on the big screen in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, directed by Brett Ranter, although that story diverged from the comics quite a bit. Also, since 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past essentially erased the original trilogy timeline, it means that this iconic story can be told once again, only this time with the cast of the prequel trilogy from X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past and last year’s X-Men: Apocalypse. 20th Century Fox has set a November 2, 2018 release date for X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which will be the third X-Men movie released that year, following The New Mutants (April 13, 2018) and Deadpool 2 (June 1, 2018).